


Even When You're Gone

by Tmae



Category: DragonFable
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7821394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tmae/pseuds/Tmae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a young Tomix accepted the challenge that resulted in the accident that bleached his hair and turned his eyes golden, he was not the only one affected by the backlash that day. His brother, his twin, Piotr, fell into a thirteen year long coma. <br/>But Piotr's awake again now, and everybody is telling him that Tomix is dead and gone. <br/>Piotr can't accept that. <br/>Tomix isn't gone. <br/><i>(He can't be.)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Woo, we've caught up to the present day in my crossposting everything!

The Danao twins had always had a connection to each other.

It was not an uncommon thing, in Tkaanie, in Mortem and the areas surrounding Edelia especially, for this to be so. Twins have always, across all cultures and worlds, had odd connections to each other, and in a land where the way of life is so intrinsically tied to souls and their ways, such connections being a little stronger was nothing anyone looked twice at.

But even so, what the Danao twins had was that little bit _more._

Mostly, it showed itself in the small things through the years. When four year old Piotr fell and scraped his knees on a rock badly enough that they bled, there were healing scabs in the exact same place on Tomix’s knees for the next week. The day after five year old Tomix’s arm had an unfortunate collision with the kitchen table’s leg, a bright purple bruise in the exact same shape was blooming on Piotr’s arm. Six year old Tomix ran into a wall, and Piotr got a nosebleed. Seven year old Piotr fell ill with fever and his brother suffered right alongside him with no symptoms of the illness but that fever.   
There were countless other, small and insignificant moments scattered through their lives. Many tumbles for one, with inexplicable bruises for the other. A paper cut to one and a wince from the other no matter if they saw the cut or not. Always the brothers seemed to mimic and mirror each other, in appearance, in mannerisms, in health.

It was noticed, of course, but never paid much attention to. It was just another odd twin connection, something that they may or may not grow out of someday. Nobody ever thought to tell the boys themselves, but then, surely of anyone who would know, the boys themselves would?

Yet both boys were rough and tumble beings and to them one more bruise or three more scabs were hardly noticeable among the many they accumulated each day.

They did not know.

If they had, perhaps things would have gone differently.

* * *

The day that it happens, they are eleven. They are eleven and the sun is shining in a bright, bright blue, cloudless sky, and anyone looking back on it would agree that the weather had been too beautiful for a day when such a tragedy occurred.

Tomix is in the courtyard. Piotr is not.

When the dare, the challenge, is issued and Tomix smirks in the way of an eleven year old who doesn’t quite understand the concept of _mortality_ just yet and accepts, Piotr, almost half a building away, _freezes._ A sharp, cold spike of dread spears through his heart and his books tumble from his arms to hit the ground as his head snaps to face the direction of the courtyard.

As Tomix slides the Headmaster’s spiritlooms over his hands, Piotr’s is _running_ , running faster than he ever has in his _life_ , an overwhelming sense of _my brother is in danger_ pulsing along with his heartbeat, pushing him onwards.

As Tomix starts to weave, Piotr grows closer and closer and _closer_ , almost there _almost there…_

He charges into the courtyard just as everything goes wrong. A soulthread whips loose and strikes Tomix across the face, and two twin cries of pain echo out across the cobblestone. Pain _burns_ across Piotr’s face and he finds himself stumbling to a stop.

The Corrupted Elemental Spirits break free and the air fills with twin _screams_ , louder and shriller and more pain filled than they ever have been before.

As Tomix’s hair bleaches white, Piotr’s legs give way and he topples forwards, finds himself lying on the ground.

As Tomix’s eyes turn gold, Pitor’s _burn_ , not only with pain but with tears as he reaches a hand out towards his brother, too far away for him to reach.

Tomix _dies_ and Piotr screams again, even louder, even shriller, his heart feeling like it has been ripped from his chest and shoved back in the wrong way around, his very soul feeling like it has been torn in half.

And then, faintly, through the tears and through pain blurred vision, he sees green, which turns to purple, floating over his brother’s…over his brother.

The last thing Piotr sees is tiny, almost invisible, smirk as Aspar sets to work.

His eyes flutter shut just as Tomix’s flutter open.

They do not open again for thirteen years.


	2. Chapter One

_And when the lark, ‘tween light and dark,_  
_Blythe waukens by the daisy’s side,_  
_and mounts and sings on flittering wings,_  
_A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide_  
_\- Composed in Spring, Robert Burns_

* * *

 

Piotr Danao does not awake from his thirteen year coma like one would awake from natural sleep, not as though a peaceful awakening nor as though a nightmare.

Rather, Piotr awakes almost as though he was never gone. One instant, his body is still, almost lifeless. The next, golden eyes snap open and a heaving, shuddering breath is sucked down his throat, fighting downwards against the scream still surging up it.

His eyes flicker around the room, almost unseeing, a years old panic burrowed deep into his bones awake before the rest of his mind.

He has but one coherent thought. A continuous, looping rote, echoing against his mind and his heart alike.

_where is he he’s in danger I have to find him where is he he’s in danger I have to find him where is he he’s in danger I have to find him where is he he’s in danger I have to-_

This thought is what drives him to attempt to get up, only to quickly discover the effect that a thirteen year long coma, even a thirteen year long _magical_ coma, will have on one’s body.

He feels it the moment that the support of his limbs gives out and gravity takes holds. With a yelp, he flings his weakened arms up to shield his head and waits for impact.

Impact never comes.

Instead, he feels a sudden jerk against his chest, the fabric of his shirt going suddenly, sharply taut against it, as though someone has grabbed the back of it. Through the gap in his arms, he could almost swear that he sees a faint purple glow outlining his shadow on the floor.

But then the door is opening and the strange force holding him upright vanishes and gravity grabs hold of his again.

The impact doesn’t come this time either. There is a flash of light that his bleary mind recognises as a soulblink and instead of his face meeting hard wooden floor, he finds himself caught and bundled back up into his bed by strong, firm arms.

He blinks up at the person who caught him, sees locks of red hair framing blue eyes in an unfamiliar face that he feels like he should know, and then temporary dam that concern for his own safety built bursts and the panic floods back.

 _Where is he_ he tries to ask, his throat clenching and refusing to let him speak _where is he is he safe I need to know where is he_

He only barely hears the person holding him shouting for someone else, yelling for help, only barely hears the following rushing footsteps, only barely registers being shifted from one pair of arms to another, because his worry is a whirlwind, and whirl _pool,_ and he is so deep down in it.

It is a voice that pulls him back. A familiar, familiar, _important_ voice, reciting a choked but solid, unending litany of _“it’s okay, Piotr, it’s alright sweetheart, I’m here, I’ve got you, it’s okay,”_ slowly but surely draws all the lingering parts of him fully into the world of the living, of the waking.

Things are beginning to slot into place, memories beginning to return and give his bleary, foggy mind clarity. His eyes flicker to the unfamiliar-and-yet-familiar face of the person who caught him before, and his mind layers the image of a giggling two year old over the teary eyes – the exact same face, oh-so-many years apart.

His heart aches to realise such a truth.

He looks upwards, up to the face of his mother, and his heart aches all the more seeing the lines on her face, the grey in her hair.

But there is something more important than missing years.

He reaches up with a trembling hand, holds onto her arm with a grip that is feeble but all the strength he can draw on right now.

“ _Mum,_ ” he chokes out, tears filling his own eyes, his voice rusty and cranky from years of disuse. He swallows despite his dry mouth and tries again to voice the question burning in his mind, his heart, his soul, seeking the answer he so desperately needs…

“Mum, where’s Tomix?”

* * *

He doesn’t believe it.

Doesn’t. Mustn’t. _Can’t._

He doesn’t get an answer the first time he asks, or the second, or the third.

Mum and Katia don’t seem to want to answer, keep changing the subject, insist he should _eat, drink, there’s plenty of time for other things later, it’s been a long time- thirteen years Piotr, take time to recover_ , but there’s a look on their faces that tells him he _needs_ to know the answer.

When they say he should _rest_ he snaps that _he’s had enough rest to last another thirteen years_ and things go very, very quiet. In the wake of that silence, feeling a little guilty, he asks the question one more time.

“Where’s Tomix?”

And.

And they tell him.

And.

He doesn’t. Doesn’t believe it. _Can’t_ believe it because.

No.

It’s not true.

It. It _can’t_ be true…but…

He remembers the feeling like his soul ripping in half and thinks. Maybe. Maybe it’s true.

He scrunches his fists in the fabric of his bedcovers and asks quietly “why’s he not here then? Does he have a soulweaver? Is he on a mission or something?” because death is death but death means something _different_ to soulweavers and his brother might – _might_ – be dead but he’s not. he can’t be. he’s not _gone._

But his mother and his sister share a stricken Look and somehow he _knows_.

“ _No,”_ he says, voice breaking almost as much as his heart. “ _No_ no _don’t_ don’t _say it no don’t he’s not-”_

“Piotr,” his mother says, her hold around him tightening just a little bit. “Piotr, he… Tomix didn’t become an elemental spirit,”

He heaves, rips one hand from clutching the fabric beneath him and grabs the fabric of his shirt, right over his heart. He grabs hold of his mother with the other hand and hot, wet tears flow uninhibited down his face.

He feels her arms wrap around him even more tightly, even more securely, and he heaves and sobs and he wants to _scream_ but he can barely even breathe enough to _gasp_ and-

No.

No. It’s not. It can’t be true. It’s not.

He doesn’t mustn’t _can’t_ believe it.

Tomix isn’t-

He _can’t_ be-

_It’s not-_

He heaves and he sobs and he just. Let’s himself fall apart in his mother’s arms, whimpering when he wants to scream to the stars and feeling so much more pain than any child, any person, should ever have to.

* * *

 _“Where’s Tomix?”_ he asks, again and again, knowing he needs the answer.

 _“He’s gone,”_ is the answer that he gets.

But.

But. He remembers that purple glow. Remembers not falling and striking the ground when he should’ve.

 _“Tomix is gone,”_ they answer his question with.

 _No_ says his heart, his soul, even as his mind and body weep and grieve. _No._

_That is the wrong answer._


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LATE  
> There is a reason I try to avoid doing multi-chaps unless I've pre-written the entire thing and the fact that it's been over a month since I updated this is pretty much it.  
> (I partially blame the lack of updates on the Bart AU eating all my creativity until I finished it. I love the Bart AU but oh man was that a plotbunny that got out of control)
> 
> Anyways! I feel like I should mention I start a new job tomorrow, which is an 8am - 5pm job so updates will probably be slow due to lack of writing time (though, honestly, it'll probably be like waits between chapter two and this one)

_"Oh, Age has weary days,_  
_And nights o' sleepless pain:_  
 _Thou golden time, o' Youthfu' prime,_  
 _Why comes thou not again!"_  
\- _The Winter of Life, Robbie Burns_

* * *

It’s... difficult adjusting to how things are now.

Thirteen years is a long time. So much has changed. His baby sister is a teenager now. His mother is older and... and _sadder_ now. He hasn’t seen his older brother even once since he woke up (but apparently Headmaster Zellaraneish is dead and Danyel was chosen to take his place, so he’s probably really busy) and his twin...

That’s the big thing really. His twin.

He spends a lot of time lost in thought. He doesn’t leave his room very much and even though he can see how worried his mother and Katia are he just can’t seem to dredge up the energy to do anything about it. He knows the importance of building up his strength again and does the exercises that his mother recommends and walks around the house with Katia but whenever he is left to his own devices he finds himself just staying still and _thinking._

There’s a good chance that nobody has realised quite how much time he has left to his own devices. He lies awake deep into the night, staring at the ceiling or the wall or out the window, being quiet, still, and thinking.

Mostly he thinks about the things that feel different about _himself._

Everything around him changed while he was in the coma. It feels like maybe he changed too, even though he remembers none of it.

He feels too old to be eleven and too eleven to be any older.

_Maybe,_ he thinks, tracing the grain of the wood of the beams in the ceiling with his eyes _maybe a part of me aged with Tomix_

And, oh, Tomix. His twin who is dead now and everyone says that he is gone but Piotr can feel every fibre of his being fight against the idea that he is so.

Not that he’s dead though. Somehow... he knows that he’s dead.

He remembers flashes of the weaving accident, remembers it feeling like his soul was torn in half, like his heart was ripped out of his chest and shoved back in the wrong way around.

His heart feels like it’s still backwards in his chest, most days. Most especially when he thinks of Tomix.

His twin is dead. Tomix lived thirteen years without him and then _died_ before he ever woke up.

It hurts. It hurts a lot and he doesn’t want to think about it or face it.

So... he doesn’t. And some days he lets himself think and some days he simply lets himself _be._

It’s relaxing, just letting yourself be. Standing or sitting or lying and just letting yourself feel empty and see the world pass around you but not do anything to reach out to it. You don’t have to face the things that hurt you.

A part of him knows that this isn’t what most people mean by letting yourself be, isn’t what most people _do_ when they let themselves be. But he feels trapped in a halfway world between eleven and whatever else he is. His two year old sister who was only just figuring out walking has become a fifteen year old student of soulweaving who now has to help _him_ walk, and then length of time between feels no more than the blink of an eye. Maybe this isn’t what letting yourself be is supposed to be but it is all that he can manage.

And then, one day, someone knocks on his bedroom door.

* * *

“Come in,” he says, injecting only a little bit of energy into his voice, not moving from the position of sitting up against the headboard and staring out the window.

The door opens and unfamiliar footsteps cross the floor. It’s definitely not Mum or Katia – he wonders, distantly, if maybe it’s Danyel, finally free of Headmaster duties to come visit.

(He doesn’t think being Headmaster would keep Danyel busy enough to always be away. He thinks maybe his brother is avoiding visiting, though he can’t think of any reason why. Whatever reason it is, it probably happened during the thirteen years he was in a coma)

The mattress dips slightly as someone sits down on the edge of it, near his feet, and since he can faintly see them out of the corner of his eye, he doesn’t stop staring out the window at the sky.

“Hi, Piotr,” the stranger says.

He continues to ignore them, not really wanting to talk to anybody. There’s a sharp purple _flash_ at the corner of his vision in their direction, which he ignores. The flash repeats once, twice more, so he turns his head but only slowly. He looks them up and down and sees no possible way that they could’ve been the source of the light.

“...should I know you?” he asks, wondering if maybe this is some old classmate grown up, though he can’t place the face. He also wonders if maybe asking that question quite so flatly was rude.

“No,” they say, shaking their head, giving him a small, soft, maybe a little strained, smile. “But I knew your brother,”

_Knew._ Past tense. He knows which brother that means then.

“Oh,” he says, and then looks out the window again.

It’s quiet for a short while, other than for birdsong outside the window.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

“I came to talk,” they say.

“About what?”

“About having to adjust to a world that’s moved on without you,”

This time his head snaps to face them, his eyes narrowing. They simply smile slightly at his suspicious, maybe even angry, squinting.

“You’re wondering what I could possibly know about that,” they say, folding their hands in their lap, looking up at the roof rather than at him. “You’re wondering how I could possibly know anything about what it’s like to suddenly be in a world years ahead of where you left it, how I could possibly know anything about seeing loved ones grown up and moved on while you’re just the same as you were,”

He clenches his jaw slightly because yes, he is.

They turn to him again, their eyes soft and understanding.

“You see, Piotr,” they start, meeting his eyes as though making sure they have his attention “Five years ago a woman called Jaania trapped me in a very powerful ice spell...”

* * *

When the story is finished, he leans his head back against the headboard and closes his eyes. He breathes in and out a few times, and then he looks at them and tells them his story.

He has a feeling that they know it already but it feels good to talk.

They talk to each other a lot, once their stories are told. They talk about a lot of things but mostly what readjusting to life is like.

It... helps. Having someone who understands. Someone who relates. He feels a lot better afterwards.

They only stay a few days and then they have to return home, but they pat him on the shoulder – he’s actually left the room and come downstairs (though Katia helped him down because nobody would let him do it on his own) to say goodbye – and tell him “chin up!” and “I’m only a letter’s write away if you need me!”

He smiles at them, not quite a grin, not yet, and says “well, that plus posting time,”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Katia startle at his making a joke and his mother smile widely at the resurgence of an old sense of humour.

He also sees his mother grab their elbow and whisper “ _thank you”_ and sees them respond by nodding and saying _“any time,”_.

And then they leave, but he doesn’t feel empty for this leaving.

If he glances downwards slightly, there’s a slight purple edge around his shadow, which is darker than it should be in this light, ever so slightly, as though there is another light source behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rough summary of what writing this chapter was like:
> 
> Me: Okay, so Piotr is adjusting to how different things are now that he's out of his coma, but what events specifically are happening. How do I start it, what's the main thing happening, how do I tie this into later plans for the fic? There's something missing, something that will tie this together...  
> The Hero, kicking down a door: I HEARD A CHILD WAS SAD  
> Me: ...yeah, okay, you'll do.


End file.
